Win small pots, lose big ones.

Why is it that when I have the nuts I cannot find a customer, and when I have the 2nd nuts I lose my stack to the player with a better hand.

For example, look at some of the hands I played this evening.

With Pocket Jacks I raise, pre-flop and he calls. With an over-pair I bet out, he raises, I shove and he calls. Surprise, surprise, he turns up a set of 5's and I've done my stack.


I reload, and am card dead for about 100 hands, losing half my stack on blinds and calls that turn into nothing. Then, I win about my only decent pot of the night - bit the action was killed because of the scary flop. My pocket Tens flop a set on a three-spade board. It turns out my opponent has top pair, top kicker, but I cannot get any major action due to the texture of the board.

The Ace on the river makes me a few dollars, and the $2.99 is my biggest pot of the evening.


I manage to squeeze the maximum out of a later pot - blind on blind I catch a King on the flop and it turns into a house on the river. Luckily the BB is not a believer and calls me down with Ace-high. A half-decent pot.

Then comes a string of opportunities that could not be capitalised on. I flop the nut flush but the opponent is scared off and I can't make a penny.


I then flop a full-house, holding pocket 2's and, although my only opponent makes runner-runner two-pair on the river, he won't commit any chips and I make a pittance.

Again, I flop the nut flush and again cannot find an opponent to give me any action.


Then come the two hands, in quick succession, that ended my evening. First, I run into Quad-Queens after my opponent limps with the big pocket pair and I limp with a suited Ace. The Ace on the flop is enough to keep me interested to the river, and I lose half my stack.

Only a couple of hands later the rest of the stack is gone, in a real sickener of a hand. I limp from the button with suited connectors and flop an up and down straight draw. The action goes check-check and I complete my straight on the turn. This time he bets out and I just make the call, praying that there is no heart on the river. I get my wish, but the board pairs, 3's.

My opponent bets about half the pot, and perhaps I should have just flat-called, as there was a paired board, but I decided I needed to maximise this and was actually willing him to have a 3, so he would call. I pushed and he actually hesitated for about 5 seconds before making the call and turning up Q-3 for a rivered full house. I just sat back and giggled, trying desperately not to throw my laptop across the room.

Why is it that any time I call and chase to the river I miss completely, and any time I have a massive hand and, as the experts say, "get my money in good" I come a cropper.

I had my opponent down to a 4-outer on the river, that's less than 10%. So, every 11 times we run this hand at the turn I should win. So why is it that when the money is on the line the 1 in 11 chance lands on the river - coincidence? I don't think so.

I've long had gripes with Full Tilt and actually emptied my account a couple of years ago and boycotted them in favour of fairer sites. I was tempted back by this 'Rush Poker' and in the first week I played I took an initial bankroll of $10 up to nearly $40 - that was just lulling me into a false sense of security - and I have come out losing every session since.

It's like you win a few quid, just to get you interested and hooked, then the tide turns and you take some astronomical bad beats, depleting your bankroll to the position where you have to top up - and they got me, I was hooked on Rush Poker and after losing the $40 I had built up I added another $25. Since then, I've lost another $15 of that, including $10 this evening with two nightmare hands.